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Back Daughter of Eden Save as PDF
Chapters (68)
  1. Title page
  2. Dedication
  3. Part I
  4. One
  5. Two
  6. Three
  7. Four
  8. Five
  9. Six
  10. Seven
  11. Eight
  12. Nine
  13. Ten
  14. Eleven
  15. Twelve
  16. Thirteen
  17. Fourteen
  18. Fifteen
  19. Sixteen
  20. Seventeen
  21. Eighteen
  22. Nineteen
  23. Twenty
  24. Twenty-one
  25. Twenty-two
  26. Twenty-three
  27. Twenty-four
  28. Twenty-five
  29. GAIA YOUNG. SUBJECTIVE IMPRESSIONS.MISSION DAY 20. 20:25 MT.
  30. Part II
  31. Twenty-six
  32. Twenty-seven
  33. Twenty-eight
  34. Twenty-nine
  35. Thirty
  36. Thirty-one
  37. Thirty-two
  38. Thirty-three
  39. Thirty-four
  40. Thirty-five
  41. Thirty-six
  42. Thirty-seven
  43. GAIA YOUNG. SUBJECTIVE IMPRESSIONS.MISSION DAY 22. 20:05 MT.
  44. Thirty-eight
  45. Thirty-nine
  46. Forty
  47. Forty-one
  48. GAIA YOUNG. SUBJECTIVE IMPRESSIONS.MISSION DAY 25. 15:30 MT.
  49. Forty-two
  50. Forty-three
  51. Forty-four
  52. Forty-five
  53. Forty-six
  54. Forty-seven
  55. Forty-eight
  56. Forty-nine
  57. Fifty
  58. Fifty-one
  59. Fifty-two
  60. Fifty-three
  61. Fifty-four
  62. Part III
  63. Fifty-five
  64. Fifty-six
  65. Fifty-seven
  66. Fifty-eight
  67. Also by Chris Beckett
  68. Copyright page

Two of a kind? I’d have been proud proud to think I was like her, but that wasn’t how it seemed to me. She was so strong and smart and certain. I didn’t feel alike to her in any way. And I was waking up now to just how much I’d left behind in Knee Tree Grounds: all my friends, my brothers, my sisters, my mother and my mother’s men, Starlight’s sister Glitterfish and her little boy, all the familiar places and things . . . And here I was, with this scary stranger, so smart and grownup and fierce, with nothing round us but ­glowing water, and Knee Tree Grounds just a patch of yellow-green light disappearing behind World’s Edge.

‘You’ve got sharp eyes,’ Mary told me. ‘I saw that at once. You’ll be able to notice the things I miss when I’m in middle of it all. You’ll be able help me, I know, even while you’re still learning. One waking you’ll come back to that little grounds of yours as a shadow­speaker yourself, I’m sure of that. And let’s hope you manage to bring all of your friends over there back to our Mother, and back to the real world.’

I was terrified that she’d made a mistake, that she’d seen something in me that wasn’t really there at all, and that soon she’d find out the truth. I tried to think of an answer that wouldn’t show her how ordinary I really was.

‘What’s it like to hear the voice of Gela?’

Mary turned to look at me. Most people’s eyes are brown but hers were grey, and that made them seem extra fierce and sharp, as they looked out at me from that big square face of hers. Those small sharp eyes could bore through stone! I was quite sure that if she hadn’t seen right through me already, she soon soon would.

‘You have to learn how to hear her, Angie. It’s hard to explain, but I’ll teach you, and when you’re ready, you can go up and stand in the Circle of Stones, and call on her to speak to you, so you can be a shadowspeaker too.’ She reached back and squeezed one of my hands in her own big mitt. ‘I’m sure she will speak to you, Angie, I’m sure our Mother will love you. I’m sure she’ll see your beauty just as I do.’